


How to Save the World: A Five Step Guide by Darcy Grace Lewis

by emma98



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: But she's still clueless when it comes to starry eyed smitten kitten Rogers, Crack, Darcy Lewis doesn't want to deal with Ultron or Civil War so she doesn't, Darcy Lewis is a boss who takes care of business, F/M, Fluff, Gratuitous nude thor, Humor, MCU rewritten so bad stuff doesn't happen, a dash of seemingly unrequited love, a smidge of UST, background Bucky/Nat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 07:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15359151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma98/pseuds/emma98
Summary: Darcy Lewis, age 20, wanted to go into politics.  She wanted to work on campaigns of truly great people who wanted to change the world and make it better.  And then Thor happened (hubba hubba).  Now Darcy Lewis works behind the scenes for truly great people who want to protect the world and make it better.And the super hero butts make everything worthwhile.





	How to Save the World: A Five Step Guide by Darcy Grace Lewis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HKThauer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HKThauer/gifts).



> This is for the lovely hkthauer on her birthday. Thank you my dear.
> 
> I've been very, horribly, stupidly ill the last month, and I kind of lost the driving desire I had to write. For the first time in a long time. But apparently, all I needed was @ragwitch/queenspuppet cheering me on, as well as Hkthauer being a wonderful person who I wanted to gift with something fun.

  


* * *

  
  
**_Step One: Don't Be Picky about Science Credits_ ** **_  
_ ** **__**

**_  
_ ** Darcy Lewis, circa 2011, was bright eyed, bushy-tailed and thought she could change the world with good intentions and fuck all else.  She had big dreams of working on campaigns of good people who shared her beliefs and wanted to change the world. So being an idiot of twenty years of age, she went about her college existence with that goal in mind.  She did clubs, she did course work, she did model UN's.    
  


What she had not done was Intro to Biology.  Or Geology. Or Astrology...astronomy. Whatever, you get the idea.   
  


So when her dusty old advisor said that her dearly necessary but hard to complete science credit could be taken care of by doing a four month internship, she was all ears.     
  


And then she found out she got a sweet ten dollar a day stipend from Culver University and she  had metaphorically dropped her academic panties. A soon to be super senior with oodles of student loan debt and no hope of a lucrative career... _ ever _ , did not turn down a PAID internship.   
  


And ten dollars a day had been worth playing in a desert with Doctor Jane 'My underwear are in the microwave' Foster and Doctor Erik "Condescending, but you let me put unlimited bar food on your bar tab" Selvig.  Once Darcy had organized Jane's very complicated data, Jane had declared that Darcy was hired permanently, despite the fact that it was a four month gig only.   
  


Then Thor happened. (hubba-hubba)   
  


And SHIELD happened.  (Fuck those motherfucking fuckers)   
  


And not only did Darcy not get her six science credits, but she got disappeared.  The  _ Men in Black  _ kind of disappeared.  After Thor shot off into the sky, Buff Sailor Moon style, SHIELD decided that Darcy knew far too much for a twenty-year-old intern.   
  


It really had not helped her case any that she had snapped a picture of Thor's ass in his really amazing well fitted metal Joan of Arc outfit, posted it to facebook with the caption "Thunderbutt.  Hot."   
  
  
It had REALLY not helped that her one internet famous friend had boosted the post to more eyes and clicks and turned the whole thing into an internet thing.  She'd made it to a Buzzfeed post, for cripe's sake. Internet fame was a strange, strange thing.   
  


* * *

**_  
_ **

  
**_Step Two: Keep Your Enemies Close_ ** **_  
_ **   


Erik and his unlimited bar tab had flittered off to some sort of super secret spy alien landing pad.  Jane and Darcy had been flown by some steroid-addled monobrow dudes on the 'SHIELD STRIKE Team' to New York city.  The Big Apple. Broadway! Central Park! Shopping!! Restaurants!!!   
  


And the small but mighty brunettes had seen exactly zero of anything interesting, because they had been sequestered in SHIELD headquarters.  Sequestered seemed to be too generous and comfortable of a word.    
  


Jailed.  Jailed seemed more accurate in Darcy's opinion.     
  


She was sure a shadowy, creepy secret spy agency hadn't meant to jail she and Jane.  But they'd assigned them rooms (cells), given Jane a lab space (thereby making Jane as happy as a clam and blind to the fact that they were, in truth, prisoners), and told Darcy to stop hacking into their systems.    
  


"HEY!  Desert gnome!"   
  


Darcy smiled serenely from her place at someone else's desk in SHIELD headquarters.  She didn't know where the original occupant of the desk was. She's about seventy-two percent sure that she stealthily assigned the dude to the floating helicarrier in the sky.  She needed a workspace just as much as Jane did, and that dude wasn't making good use of the wickedly fast computer at his desk anyway. The only thing he did all day was play Galaga.   
  


A smaller, bald, bespectacled man looked down at Darcy with an air of superiority that was ENTIRELY unwarranted, especially given that he was doused in at least three different types of Axe body spray, and he had sweat stains on the pits of his suit jacket.  He'd sweated straight through at least two other shirts.    
  


"Wassup?" Darcy asked congenially.   
  


"I told you to stop nosing around in our systems," the SHIELD sweater sneered down at her.   
  


"Yeah, but I'm not NOSING around, I have a very specific plan in place.  Nosing around makes a person think that there is no plan," Darcy countered, typing happily on the ridiculously responsive computer.  And she DID have a plan. Namely to build herself backdoors into SHIELD's entire mainframe, so she could get in whenever she needed to find out what was happening.   
  
  
Sure, they were keeping her with Jane right now, and they were allowing Erik to call them nightly, but Darcy didn't for one second think that the people who had wiped out her SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER were going to keep her safe and happy.  She needed to make sure that she could get in on any kind of burner phone, computer, or tin can so that she could make sure Erik and Jane and Thunderbutt were safe.   
  


She looked up at Sweaty McSweatsalot, who she thinks had a name of Sitwell, which really, did not make his ancient ancestors look that great.  She had a lie on her tongue and extra sass up her sleeve to flummox Sweats-well even further when the agent's phone began buzzing excessively.    
  


"Holy shit---"   
  


Sweatswell's eyes went as wide as the size of his armpit sweat stains as the rest of the SHIELD office dwellers around Darcy went crazy with sudden activity.  Most of the SHIELD agents seemed to be excited, but Sweatswell and a handful of others suddenly looked absolutely devastated. Darcy didn't get a chance to ask or annoy him because Sweatswell took off like a scurrying rat.  Darcy's attention immediately went back to the computer, pulling up all the alerts that had gone out to all of SHIELD's departments.   
  


The agents with the highest clearance had the most information.     
  


And pictures.   
  


"Steve Rogers in transport, prep all medical units," Darcy read before clicking on the file.  And there he was. The REAL Steve Rogers. Patriotic jaw looking a little...blue. Icy. Another picture showed a large block of ice encasing the man, who looked to have been frozen while laying flat out, like he had slid from a chair before being put in an ice cube tray.  The file had every angle of the giant ice block encased super soldier.   
  
Darcy pulled out her previously confiscated phone and snapped a picture of one of the angles, posting it immediately to a newly created, super secret facebook.   
  


"Patriotic Ice Butt.  Still hot."   
  


* * *

  
**_Step Three:  Brush up on your Geneva Convention_ **   
  
  
Darcy had been locked in her room for thirty-six hours.  She assumed that all of the 'guests' of SHIELD that called the sparse cells in the headquarters of New York City ‘home’ had been similarly locked into their rooms since Captain Rogers had been delivered in a huge block of ice for immediate defrosting.  Luckily, she had been making serious headway in unlocking the backdoors to the SHIELD computer mainframes, and had gotten play-by-play reports about Captain Rogers' progress.   
  


The defrosting had not appeared to be fun, even in writing.  She seriously worried about his nerve endings and frostbite. But the defrost was nothing compared to what she'd read was going down next, straight out of the inbox of the head honcho of SHIELD.  They were going to try to break it to Captain Rogers gently that nearly seven decades had come and gone since his plane had crashed.   
  


By pretending it was still 1945.   
  


Naturally, Darcy felt this was not only an affront to Captain Steve Rogers' legendary intelligence and tactician's brain (there were entire college courses about him, for grape's sake), but also a real DICK move.  So she spent the rest of her time in solitary confinement on breaking herself out of said solitary confinement and finding a way to get to Captain Rogers to help him somehow.   
  


The last thing he needed was to be stuck in the cell next to hers while SHIELD decided what to do with him.  By the time she had destroyed ALL of the locking mechanisms on ALL of the residential areas of SHIELD HQ, the alarms were ringing and the staff was stating how Steve Rogers had broken out of SHIELD like it's reinforced concrete walls had been wet tissue paper.   
  


Darcy kind of fell a little in love with the legendary figure then and there, honestly.   
  


She was halfway to attempting to grab Jane and run out herself when the hall was filled with security.  The monobrow STRIKE member reached out and grabbed her shoulder, a snarl on his lips and presumably monosyllabic words about to be spewed out of his steroid tinged mouth when a man in an eyepatch strode into the hallway.   
  


"Stand down, Rumlow, she's harmless."   
  


"Agent Coleman's bruised ribs beg to differ, sir," Rumlow answered back with not a lot of respect for his commanding officer.  He stiffened when a man came walking behind Fury.   
  


"Is she a danger to you, Soldier?" Captain Rogers demanded, his eyes zeroing in on where Rumlow had a grip on Darcy's shoulder.  He looked back up at Rumlow with a laser focus, assessing the ghost of a sneer on the agent's face.   
  


"I'm lethal, really," Darcy answered for the struck silent Rumlow.  She attempted to take a step forward, but Rumlow gripped her shoulder tighter causing her nose to wrinkle at the sudden flare of pain.     
  


Captain Rogers took a step forward past a carefully observant Fury, but Darcy held up her left hand in a polite gesture for the good Captain to wait.  Her right hand went into her sweater pocket and pulled out good ole Buzzbert, and in the span of five seconds, she had jerked the grip off her shoulder and shot, causing the much larger creep that had been intent on manhandling her to twitch uncontrollably.   
  


And then piss himself.   
  


And then fall into a twitching pile into a puddle of said piss.   


  
The icing on the cake was Steve Rogers letting out a chuckle.   
  
"Miss Lewis, is there a reason you are out of your room?" Fury decided to speak up as Darcy grinned at Captain Rogers.  "Aside from testing out weaponry that had been previously taken from your custody?"   
  


"What?" Darcy blinked and turned to look at the leather duster wearing badass.  She pressed on the trigger to pull back the leads on Buzzbert and began speaking to hide the fact that she was hiding the taser back on her person.  "Oh, right, the Geneva Convention is why I took a trip out of my room."   
  
  
"I'm sorry, I don't see how---"   
  


"Captain Rogers' last known whereabouts were in the custody of Hydra.  He is technically a prisoner of war," Darcy insisted.   
  


"He---well now he has been recovered---"    
  


"Nope," Darcy interrupted the Director of SHIELD, who was clearly not used to being interrupted, if the look on his face was any indication.  "SHIELD is not tied to the American government, nor is it fostered by the United Nations. SHIELD is an independently run, privately funded corporation, so Captain Rogers went from being Hydra's prisoner of war to your prisoner of war.  And being a prisoner of war means that there is protocol to follow---"   
  


"He is NOT a prisoner and we are NOT at war," Fury grumbled.   
  


"Oh, so he and by extension, Doctor Foster and I are civilians assigned to a residence of internment for imperative reasons of security?" Darcy came back quickly.   
  


"I---you---"   
  


"You have no reason to be keeping us, nor Captain Rogers," Darcy continued.     
  


"You're keeping civilians hostage?" Captain Rogers looked at Fury discerningly.   
  


"They were witness to a---" Fury began, but cut himself off when Darcy began to grin like a cat who had finally gotten the cream.  He focused entirely on her and demanded, "What do you want?"   
  


"A settlement for me and Jane for being detained here these past few weeks, all of Jane’s intellectual property, as well as our immediate release," Darcy rattled off easily before turning to look at Captain Rogers.  "You should also release Captain Rogers immediately. He doesn't need to rely on you for shelter or care, seeing as he's due seven decades worth of hazardous back pay and then there's the licensing of his likeness that Howard Stark did and he doesn't---"   
  


"You think he can just wander outside after nearly seven decades---"   
  


"I DID wander outside after nearly seven decades on ice, Director Fury," Captain Rogers argued.  He looked back at Darcy and gave her a respectful nod. "Miss Lewis?"   
  


"Present," Darcy waved her hand at him in a small gesture of 'hello'.   
  


"I'd like to employ you as my advocate," Steve stated plainly.  "To help me...get adjusted to everything.”   
  


Darcy's eyes went wide with sudden delight.  She itched to get to her phone to make some sort of celebratory post regarding this sudden turn in fortune.  Just a few hours ago, she'd been locked in a room. Instead her aborted wave turned into a little fist pump.   
  


"Fuck right."   
  


* * *

**_  
_ **

  
**_Step Four: Let Lightning Strike Twice_ ** **_  
_ **   
  
The Chitauri Invasion of New York City had happened just a short time after Darcy had finagled a heavy payday for Steve, and had subsequently set him up with a Brooklyn apartment and the most intensive crash course in modern modernity known to man.  When she and Jane had returned from Norway, she had spent a lot of time with Sweatswell, aka Agent Sitwell.   
  


She'd spent a lot of time hacking into his email and sending him ominous messages regarding the contracted positions that Steve, Jane and Thor would be taking with SHIELD.  Sure, Thor had taken off with his insane little brother, shooting back into the sky and whatnot, but Darcy was taking liberties and making sure that Thor was just as protected as Steve and Jane were.   
  


"London?" Steve questioned as he dug around a container of cheap Chinese takeout for water chestnuts, which he immediately deposited onto Darcy's plate.     
  


"London," Darcy repeated.  She shoved one of the treasured water chestnuts into her mouth and spoke around the food, "Wanna come?"   
  


"I'd like to visit," Steve nodded.  "It's a six month stay?"   
  


They'd cultivated a very tight friendship in the past year.  Darcy had once had aspirations to change the world, to find earnest and honest politicians and to work behind the scenes to get them elected to where they could do good.  Instead, she spent a lot of her time behind the scenes bullying worldwide organizations full of shady individuals in letting her people, namely Jane, Thor and Steve, to do their good work while not getting taken advantage of.   
  


It was a pretty good vocation, if she were being honest.  And she really did love figuratively putting SHIELD over a barrel.  Especially Sweatswell.   
  


Spending time with Steve Rogers was one of her favorite things in the world to do.  He was wickedly dry and sarcastic, delightfully trollish in his behavior, and bone rattlingly GOOD, fundamentally, right down to his core.  And not to be entirely superficial, but he was her FAVORITE person to look at. Some days she'd spend inappropriate amounts of time looking at him while he was watching something or reading something or drawing something.   
  


He was her favorite person, if she were being honest with herself.   
  
  
"Just six months," Darcy answered back with a jaunty little nod of her head.  She couldn't miss the look of relief on Steve's face. "And then Jane and I are going to set up in that lab in Virginia, just a half hour train ride from the apartment in DC.  I expect you to stock plenty of those old man nougat candies that you got me addicted to."   
  


Steve grinned at her, the expression full of friendliness and comfort.  Darcy swallowed back the dreamy sigh. Steve was just one year out of the ice, he was still mourning his old life, and the fact that he'd essentially LOST the love of his life to the hard and unforgiving march of time was always fresh in her mind.  She had used every ounce of self control she had (not a lot) to make sure she hadn't fallen hopelessly in love with him in this last year.    
  


There was NOTHING good about unrequited love of that magnitude.   
  


"So when I visit you in London, are you gonna make sure you have the hot sauce I like?" Steve tapped her nose playfully with his chopsticks.     
  


"Of course," Darcy grinned.  "I'll use it to fend off vermin, too."   
  


Darcy had not needed Steve's specially made Jolokia pepper hot sauce to fend off vermin.  She did wonder if it might have come in handy against Dark Elves though. But when all was said and done, Steve's hot sauce was safe and transported back to the States to her new apartment shared with Jane (and Thor(and Selvig)).  She spent more time at Steve's place than she did her own, but it was all very platonic and all very frustrating.   
  


When he went on missions, being whisked right off the streets of DC by Natasha 'Hot Rod' Romanoff, Darcy was stuck at her own place.  With Jane. And Thor. And Selvig. It was her luck to catch Thor in the nude at two pm on a Thursday, standing right in the middle of the kitchen as he poured some of Steve's magic hot sauce directly on a piece of cold pizza.   
  


"DARCY!" He grinned.  "I enjoy the spicy sauce.  It makes everything so much better."   
  


"Thor," Darcy nodded.   
  


"Darcy," Thor smiled back at her in his adorable, beguiling way.   
  


"You're naked," Darcy reminded him.   
  


Thor paused and looked slightly chagrined before his brain clearly tried to come up with a viable reason to get him out of the violation of the nudity clause in Apartment Foster/Lewis/Odinson/Selvig.     
  


"Indeed,"  he tried to smile at her again, but it was definitely tinged with worry now.   
  


"We've spoken about this," Darcy reminded him.   
  


"I recall that---vaguely," Thor hedged.   
  


"Turn around, studly," Darcy waved her right index finger in the air, looking as bored as possible.   
  


"Alright," Thor sighed, doing as he was told and doing the pose he had well practiced by now.   
  


The Coppertone baby pose, namely.  The price for being caught nude in a public space.   
  
  
"Thunderbutt strikes back," Darcy muttered before hitting send on the group text that contained far too many superheroes for her to actually know.  Her skill set was a coveted one, and she had found her clientele slowly building. Pepper Potts wanted to employ her separately, and work out new contracts for her growing stable of super powered people.  Natasha had asked her to advocate for her, and that really seemed to be something destined to either be Darcy's crowning jewel in her professional crown---or the reason for her untimely poisoning.    
  


Either way.  Fun.   
  


Her phone chirped back at her and it wasn't a humorous remark about Thor's bare, pert cheeks.  It was from an unknown number and started off with a string of nonsensical letters before ending with a straightforward message.   
  


' _ TRUST NO ONE BUT YOURS _ .'   
  


"Hey, Thor, buddy?" Darcy whispered, pulling up her back alley connections with the SHIELD computers.  She winced when she saw the first message going between two high ranking agents regarding the subject of 'HAIL HYDRA'.     
  


"More leaning?" Thor questioned, arching his back in a specific way to get his thunderbuns out there more aggressively.     
  


"No---uhm, we have a bad guy situation.  A really huge bad guy situation Can you get Jane out of here?"   


* * *

  


  
**_Step Five: Have a Wing and a Prayer_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ **

The fall of SHIELD caused Darcy Lewis' life to change forever.     
  


Firstly, Natasha had texted her the name of a hospital and a room after the helicarriers had fallen from the sky.  When Darcy had arrived, it was to see Steve in a hospital bed, looking like he had gotten into the fight with a rabid, angry super racoon.  Her entire world had rearranged after that moment, when the man sitting at Steve's bedside had nudged him and Steve had looked at Darcy with relief clearly showing past his bruises.     
  


This was more than just a passing fancy.  The feelings she felt for Steve, as a person, as a good, kind, decent, wonderful and amazing person, were real and she would have to figure out how to do something about them.     
  


Secondly, another text from Natasha, pointing her to the files of at least a dozen heroic types that needed an advocate in their lives now that SHIELD was in shambles had her scrambling to make sure everyone was being treated fairly.  Suddenly her stable of two and a half superheroes and two super scientists turned into an actual facts stable of supers. And she took her job very, very seriously.    
  


And she was damned good at it, as was evidenced by the current deal Sam Wilson had.  He had been forgiven the crime of 're-appropriating' government property, i.e., his wings.  He had his national security clearance increased. He was getting enough money from his aggressively negotiated Stark contract to allow his mother to retire early.   
  


"And I mean, technically, she got me a girlfriend, but we don't talk about that as a perk, but more like a happy coincidence.  And I mean, Doctor Helen Cho? She's the happiest of coincidences if you get my meaning," Sam explained to the newest recruit, two skittish young, Sokovian people who probably didn't have the purest of intent in trying to become a part of Darcy's stable of superheroic and super brained people.  Maria Hill and Natasha swore that they had it under control and Wanda and Pietro Maximoff would be converted to the side of good.   
  


Which all things considered, seemed like a great idea.   
  


"And she stopped Tony Stark and Bruce Banner from unleashing some crazy robot nanny on the world two days ago, that was pretty dope," Sam nodded in agreement with himself while Wanda looked around nervously and Pietro chewed the inside of his cheek.    
  


  
"Alright, Big Bird enough, keep going on the tour," Darcy waved them off when Sam snapped a lazy salute her way.  "OH, and I need your report on that missing person case."   
  


"He ghosted me when I got close, also he somehow superglued my pants to the wall," Sam muttered, his good mood disappearing.  He looked at the too good to be true Maximoff twins and sucked his teeth. "C'mon kids, let's go meet up with Romanoff."   
  


Darcy watched them before looking down at her phone, swiping things into the trash bin and typing out quick replies to the things she could slap bandaids on.  She was so involved in her work that she didn't notice the big hulking hunk of a man standing in front of her until a calloused fingertip ran gently over the line her furrowed brows were creating on her forehead.     
  


"Steve," Darcy whispered, looking up, work completely forgotten.   
  


"There's my girl," Steve smiled down at her.     
  


If only.   
  


"You're working too hard," Steve accused.     
  


And she had been since the fall of SHIELD.  In the blink of an eye, twelve more months had passed.  The Avengers, aka Darcy's A-team, had tracked down Loki's spear and the mind stone had been taken somewhere to be safe.  They were going to be opening a brand new facility in upstate New York, something with enough room to have heavy artillery, and enough wilderness that should the Hulk go wild, he could tear through the mountains.  Darcy and Sam had been intensely involved in the active search for Bucky Barnes, who Darcy secretly referred to as her white whale of super powered people.    
  


And not to mention the delicate dance of being Steve Roger's best friend who secretly wanted to jump his bones and then cuddle him very, very aggressively afterwards.  Steve was clueless and simply treated her like the best friend that she had turned out to be.   
  


She would have rather done hand to hand combat with that ridiculous Ultron robot that Stark and Banner had been attempting to build than to have been pining hopelessly for her best friend.   
  


Steve was still talking and Darcy was not paying a lick of attention.  But he ended his pleading little speech with a hopeful smile and a soft, "Whaddya say, sweetheart?"   
  


Darcy quickly berated herself for not paying attention to whatever Steve's proposal had been, but he was looking hopeful and adorable and lickable so the least she could do was hold up two thumbs and nod eagerly.   
  


"Really?" Steve's smile could have outpaced the two suns on Thor's vacation planet.    
  


"Of course?" Darcy said hopefully.   
  


"Alright, great---just---," Steve ran both hands through his hair, leaving it adorably and delightfully ruffled.  He leaned down quickly and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. "Go and pack, and I'll meet you in half an hour downstairs."   
  


Darcy nodded and watched as Steve ran off with a definite spring in his super powered step.  She enjoyed the view for as long as she could before the heavy realization hit that she had agreed to go somewhere that required PACKING with Steve and she had no idea where it actually was.   
  


"Well.  Shit."   
  


* * *

  


  
Steve was being a squirrely little shit, which was one of the many reasons that Darcy normally, secretly loved him.  However, she would have preferred him being more forthcoming about their trip. She'd been at a loss about how much and exactly what to pack.  So she'd packed exactly what she had when Thor had taken her and Jane to some amazing planet in a far flung solar system and had been completely unable to tell them what they would wear.  Her duffle consisted of a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, one of Steve's adorable old man sweaters and two dozen pairs of underwear and bras.    
  


Natasha was a little shit too.  Because she was piloting the quinjet for Steve and Darcy and she too was typically squirrely about what the destination was.  And she seemed to sense that Darcy had agreed blindly and the lady spy was poking at Darcy now and again.   
  


"Are you excited about that thing they have here?" Natasha asked with that famous stoic calm blitheness that she possessed.  She winked at Steve before smiling at Darcy. "You know...the thing."   
  


Darcy narrowed her eyes at her friend and CLIENT and pulled out her phone.     
  


"Someone's due for a contract renewal with the government.  I think puberty PSA's would be a wise choice," Darcy arched an eyebrow at Natasha, whose cool had quickly vanished and was replaced with the Black Widow's version of panic, namely, her mouth slightly open and her eyes narrowing at her victim.   
  


"Sweetheart, no," Steve took her phone away.  "First, no work, you promised. Second, I still can't walk down a street in New York without some kid from public school coming up and asking me about their body changing from MY PSA's you made me do."   
  


"You jumped from the top of a one hundred and eight story building without a parachute," Darcy reminded Steve.  "Speaking of, maybe you need another set of PSA's after---"   
  


"Rogers, there's company down there," Natasha interrupted, all business.   
  


"What, no, Tony promised," Steve vainly argued as he grabbed Darcy's hand and led her up to the cockpit, where the view was nearly perfect.   
  


It was Tony's private island in the Pacific.  Pristine and untouched and beautiful. Except for the US government helicopter and the two dozen men waiting on the ground.  Darcy narrowed her eyes and recognized the seal of the United States government. As Natasha lowered the jet to the ground, she could more clearly see the secret service members guarding one man in particular.     
  


Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross.   
  


"Miss Lewis," Ross sneered when the trio exited the quinjet.  "I've been trying to get in touch with you."   
  


"I do believe that I gave you my response," Darcy fired right back.  She took two steps ahead of Steve and Natasha, letting them take a secondary, protective stance behind her, much like Ross's lackeys behind him.  "Fuck off, Ross."   
  


"Miss Lewis, really---"   
  


"No, no.  No really.  Fuck off," Darcy insisted.     
  


"The Accords are---"   
  


"FUCK.  OFF. The Accords to get all the superheroes under your control are. Not.  Happening," Darcy promised.   
  


"Oh, so the superheroes are under YOUR control," Ross countered.   
  


Darcy took a slight step back and thought about that.  Technically, the vast majority of them in the world WERE somehow associated with her.  And while the workload got so heavy sometimes that she had to be whisked away to deserted islands by Steve Rogers, it was a meaningful work.   
  


"They aren't under my control," Darcy answered.  "They are free moving, free thinking humans who do their best to make the world a better, safer place.  They just happen to check in with me to know where they're supposed to get their next meal from. The Accords aren't happening.  Pepper Potts has nearly every country in the United Nations committed to moving forward and working with the heroes to ensure the safety of the world."   
  


"They are a danger to---"   
  


"Your face is a danger to my brain, dude," Darcy sassed back automatically, causing Steve to snort a small chuckle behind her.  "You are NEVER going to use them as your personal army. Give up. It's not going to happen. And if you don't give up? I'll find a way to make it happen, I promise you. Now, get on your helicopter, take your hired guns with you and fuck back off to where you came from."   
  


"We'll see," Ross muttered, waving his security forces back towards their transport.     
  


Darcy wrinkled her nose as the helicopter took off and then turned to face Natasha, not Steve.   
  


"You owe me for giving you my last bar of the good dark chocolate last Valentine's day," Darcy reminded her.  She was pleased to see Natasha do her version of squirming again. "Where is James Barnes?"   
  


"What?" Steve furrowed his brow in confusion, his initial euphoria and delight of watching Darcy verbally manhandle Ross dissipating quickly.     
  


"Nat, don't give me any shit here," Darcy warned her.  "Ross is going to go after the outliers that will give us the most heartache.  Number one on that list is James Barnes."   
  


"There's also Wakanda---"   
  


"Taken care of," Darcy waved her off.  "The princess of Wakanda is adorably forward thinking and wanted me to patent quite a lot of things for her.  We're cool with Wakanda."   
  


"I may know that he's in Europe," Natasha muttered reluctantly.   
  


"Romanoff," Steve sighed.   
  


"Where did you last lay hands on him?" Darcy cut straight to the chase.  “Biblically.”   
  


"Romanoff?" Steve questioned, flabbergasted at this news.   
  


"Bucharest," Natasha mumbled, her lips turning up just slightly at the memory of the last time she had indeed lain hands on Bucky Barnes.  Biblically.   
  


"Bring him in, you have until the end of my vacation," Darcy advised.     
  


Steve looked hurt at his friend and co-worker, "I can't believe you didn't---"   
  


"He's almost ready, he just needed a little more time.  He’s been trying to get better before seeing you," Natasha said quietly.  "I'll go now. You two good here?"   
  


"Yeah, we're good," Steve nodded.  His disappointment and slight anger began to float away as Natasha stalked off.  Soon he was only smiling and he looked down at Darcy, "You're one helluva dame, Darcy Lewis."   
  


"I do alright," Darcy agreed with a shrug.  She looked around and saw a hut that looked primitive, but promised to be high tech thanks to the name of Stark carved in wood over the doorway.  "So Stark's private nude island."   
  


It wasn’t an exaggeration.  Stark constantly bragged about the two weeks a year he got to spend with Pepper on the isolated bit of nude paradise.  


  
Steve blushed a bit and gave her a little wink.  Darcy could only blink at him in her slight astonishment.  She was soon wrapped up in very strong arms, pulled against the long, delicious slab of muscle that was Steve's body.  He stared down at her and Darcy felt her brain fizzle out just a tiny bit under the weight of the WANT he was aiming at her.     
  


"I read somewhere that nothing relaxes a person more than private, dedicated attention," Steve's voice was a low, gravel tinged thing that had the apples of Darcy's cheeks turning pink.  "I figured my girl deserved the most private and dedicated attention she could get."   


  
"Your girl?" Darcy whispered.   


  
"Well---you gave---you did the thumbs up and nodded?" Steve reminded her, confusion tainting that seductive saint thing he had going.  "Did--you said yes, you were my sweetheart, right?"   
  


He let go of her and looked down at her in concern, wondering how on Earth he could have misread it.  Darcy blinked up at him, completely gobsmacked. She reached up and grabbed him by a fistful of t-shirt and brought his face down to her level, placing her lips against his, firm and sure.  It quickly devolved, with Steve eagerly parting his lips and licking straight into Darcy's mouth.    
  


A few years of sexual tension sparked into the atmosphere around them as Steve groaned out his appreciation.  Darcy pulled back just enough to speak, her words pushing into the open space between Steve's lips,   
  


"So, just to let you know, I didn't pack a swimsuit, so I fully intend on taking advantage of the nudity part of this private nude beach."   
  


Steve brought up two thumbs and nodded eagerly.   
  


"Good, so that means we should spend the next two hours clearing the island of all the bugs and recording devices that Ross left.  And that Tony probably left. And Natasha. Get a move on, my sweetheart, we're wasting daylight."   
  


* * *

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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